


Journeys End

by thuvia ptarth (thuviaptarth)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayerff
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Wishverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-02-04
Updated: 2004-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:24:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thuviaptarth/pseuds/thuvia%20ptarth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Journeys end in strangers meeting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Journeys End

**Author's Note:**

> Instafic for Minim Calibre.

She's got a fake ID, four hundred and thirty-eight dollars, three changes of underwear, two stakes, her five favorite lipsticks, and a stuffed pig named Mr. Gordo in her backpack. She keeps another stake tucked between the hollow of her back and the waistband of her jeans, and no one who laughs at Mr. Gordo is gonna survive long enough to laugh twice. (Okay. If they're human, she maybe won't kill them. But it won't be her fault if she hits them a couple of times before figuring out they're not demons, right?) The stake comes in handy in the restroom off I-15 and then out back behind a gas station in Nevada, and then again in a warehouse in Cleveland. By Cleveland she's given up on trying to figure out her attraction for the undead. Fate, destiny, a _really annoying_ death wish.

She's wiping the dust off her hands when she hears the cough.

"You should try zinc oxide for that," she advises, tucking the stake back in her belt. "My mom says it's clinically proven to cure colds."

The silence is astonished. Also British. She's getting good at this. She can tell.

"I don't have a cold, Miss Summers."

"Oh, allergies? That _sucks_. I'm allergic to cats. I just puff right up – poof!--all red and round, and it's just way worse than water weight, I'm telling you."

The new Watcher steps out from behind some boxes and eyeballs her with the annoyance of a man whose grand entrance has just been _totally_ upstaged. He's way younger than Merrick. "Miss Summers, I am Wesley Wyndam-Price. The Council has sent me to be your new Watcher." He takes his glasses off and polishes them on his sleeve. "I have tracked you down via arduous magicks, and I must say that I am --"

"I'm not going back."

"Miss Summers --"

"My mom wants to lock me up like a crazy person," and it was supposed to sound flip, but it doesn't. Her mom thinks she's crazy, her friends stopped talking to her even _before_ she burned down the gym, and—Merrick's dead. She held his hand and he stopped breathing and his hand felt just the same, still warm, but his face was suddenly like a crumpled newspaper, nothing but meaningless lines. She'd thought it was bad when she realized what happened to Cassandra, when she saw the fangs and had to dust her, and it's not like she even really _liked_ her, but she was there and then she was gone; but there were the fangs and the face, and then she was dust. Merrick, Merrick wasn't dust. But he was gone just the same.

The new Watcher clears his throat again. "In fact, the Council has a task for y—for us closer to hand." He gestures her forward and they walk together out of the warehouse gloom into the grey predawn.

"Cleveland, it transpires, has a Hellmouth."

"I'm guessing that's not a nightclub?"

He sighs, and begins to explain.


End file.
